Exercises

1. When setting up your recording, try experimenting with the different capture area selection methods. Which method would you choose if you were recording…

   1. a tutorial about the various toolbars in Microsoft Word?

   2. a usability session where all the users’ actions on the computer needed to be captured?

   3. a series of videos about a web application?

   4. a Palm OS utility?

2. What commands must be executed in order to include audio and PIP streams with your screen video? Try making a sample video with these streams enabled, and then check out your Preview window. Did everything show up as expected?

3. Toggle the view of your Camtasia Recorder application a few times. Which view do you like best? To save on screen real estate, remember to turn off any toolbars you don’t think you’ll regularly use.

4. Take a look at the Statistics and Properties area of the Recorder window while recording (if the window’s not visible, try double- clicking its blinking task bar icon). When might the knowledge of the frame rate come in handy? What about the length?

5. After recording a 60-second sample video, try analyzing it according to the Recorder workflow tips laid out in this chapter. How did your video come out? Did you run into any unexpected problems? Take a look at the sample video located in the Chapter 5 media folder on the companion CD. What problems can you identify?